The Pain Of Searching For iPhone And iPad Apps Made Easy In iTunes (no, really!)

Where do you shop for iPhone and iPad apps? iTunes on your Mac or PC? Or, right on the iPhone or iPad’s screen?

If the latter, I feel your pain. Apple monkeyed with the App Store in iOS and it’s more difficult now than ever to find apps in that clumsy, horizontal exploring method. There’s a better way to find apps but it involves the Mac app we love to hate. iTunes.

The App Collections App

To be perfectly honest, I’ve grown tired of shopping for apps on my iPhone and iPad because of the new App Store interface. Back to basics. And iTunes.

It’s been awhile since I actually bought iPhone and iPad apps through the iTunes App Store interface on my Mac.

Frankly, this shopping experience is so cluttered and convoluted that it actually drove me to the convenience of shopping right inside the iPhone or iPad (back when it was fun).

So, I’m back in iTunes. Click on the App Store button at the top, then navigate through the clutter to find a category and begin searching for what’s new and noteworthy.

Instead of browsing through fixed categories and trying to sort through apps that are worthy, the App Collections segregate iPhone and iPad apps into groups.

Hall of Fame: Some of the most popular apps. Apps Made by Apple: Duh. The basics from Garageband, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, Numbers, et al.

Camera and Photography: Only the best of the apps for your iPhone or iPad camera and photos. There are collections of Apps for Parents, Apps for Kids, News and Money Management.

Why is it important to start your search with the Essentials App Collections? The App Store has somewhere around 700,000 apps for iPad and iPhone. Apple doesn’t make it easy to search for only the most popular or the best in any category.

Instead, App Collections gives you one-click access to a curated list of iOS apps. Essentially, these are the apps Apple recommends. Unfortunately, App Collections don’t have enough search criteria. Select from Featured, Name, or Release Date, but not by popularity or rating.

Obviously, Apple still wants us to search through the riff raff to find apps, whether they’re the most popular or highest rated is a secondary concern. So, I treat App Collections as the app that lets me search through the best of the apps, curated and refined into collections worthy of a look.

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About Jack Miller

I work for a US technology company in Paris, France and switched from Windows PCs to the Mac 20 years ago. My wife said it would improve our marriage, give us more friends, and reduce stress. I guess that two out of three isn't bad. Read more of my articles here.

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